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<TITLE> Faculty Research Interests : Sam Toueg </TITLE><H1> Sam Toueg</H1><I><DL><DT> 
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<DT><DT>Professor<DT>
Ph.D., Princeton University, 1979
<p>
</DL></I><H3>Research Interests</H3>
<p>
My research interests include distributed computing, fault-tolerance
and real-time.  I work on methodologies, paradigms, and algorithms for
fault-tolerant distributed systems, in both message-passing and
shared-memory  systems.  My long-term goal is to bridge the gap
between  theoretical results and the need for efficient and practical
solutions.

In collaboration with
<!WA8><!WA8><!WA8><!WA8><!WA8><!WA8><!WA8><!WA8><!WA8><!WA8><!WA8><!WA8><a href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/chandra/home.html">Tushar Chandra</a>
and 
<!WA9><!WA9><!WA9><!WA9><!WA9><!WA9><!WA9><!WA9><!WA9><!WA9><!WA9><!WA9><a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~prasad">Prasad Jayanti</a>, 
two Ph.D.
Computer Science students, we continued our work on
<!WA10><!WA10><!WA10><!WA10><!WA10><!WA10><!WA10><!WA10><!WA10><!WA10><!WA10><!WA10><a href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/chandra/FailureDetectionPapers.html">unreliable failure
detectors for message-passing systems</a>,
and on wait-free objects for shared-memory systems.
<p>
A fundamental result of fault-tolerant distributed computing
states that the Consensus problem cannot be solved (with a
deterministic  algorithm) in asynchronous systems.  This impossibility
result  is due to the inherent difficulty of determining whether a
process  has crashed (or is merely very slow) in such a system.  In
our work,  we were able to determine exactly how much information
about  failures is necessary and sufficient to solve Consensus.  We
first  showed one can use W, an unreliable failure detector that can
make an  infinite number of mistakes, to solve Consensus in systems
with a  majority of correct processes.  We then proved that to solve
Consensus, any failure detector has to provide at least as much
information about  failures as W.  Thus, W is the weakest failure
detector for solving  Consensus in asynchronous systems with a
majority of correct  processes.  We are now exploring the practicality
of  implementing W,  and of applications that rely on W for their
correctness.
<p>
A concurrent system consists of processes communicating via shared
objects.   A shared object is wait-free if each process that accesses
this  object is guaranteed to get a response even if all the other
processes  crash.  We are now exploring wait-free hierarchies of
object types, where each object (type) is assigned to a level that
corresponds to its  ability in implementing other wait-free objects.
In particular,  Prasad Jayanti has shown that a well-known hierarchy
(Herlihy's)  is not robust:  Informally, in this hierarchy there is an
object at level  2 that can be used to implement wait-free objects at
any  level.  We  are now exploring the question of whether
robust wait-free hierarchies exist.
<p>
<H4>Selected Publications</H4>
<p>
<li> Bracha, G., and S. Toueg.
Asynchronous consensus and broadcast protocols.
<I> Journal of the ACM</I>, vol. 32, 10, 1985, 824-840.
<p>
<li> Srikanth, T. K., and S. Toueg.
Optimal clock synchronization.
<I> Journal of the ACM</I>, vol. 34, 3, 1987, 626-645.
<p>
<li> El Abbadi, A., and S. Toueg.
Maintaining availability in partitioned replicated databases.
<I> ACM Transactions on Database Systems</I>, vol. 14, 2, 1989, 264-290.
<p>
<li> Neiger, G., and S. Toueg.
Automatically increasing the fault-tolerance of distributed algorithms.
<I> Journal of Algorithms</I>, vol. 11, 3, 1990, 374-419.
<p>
<li> <!WA11><!WA11><!WA11><!WA11><!WA11><!WA11><!WA11><!WA11><!WA11><!WA11><!WA11><!WA11><a href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/chandra/home.html">Chandra, T.</a>, and S. Toueg.
<!WA12><!WA12><!WA12><!WA12><!WA12><!WA12><!WA12><!WA12><!WA12><!WA12><!WA12><!WA12><a href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/chandra/UnreliableFD.html">Unreliable failure
detectors for asynchronous systems.</a>
<I>  Proceedings 10th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing
</I>.
August 1991, Montreal, Canada, 257-272.
<p>
<li> <!WA13><!WA13><!WA13><!WA13><!WA13><!WA13><!WA13><!WA13><!WA13><!WA13><!WA13><!WA13><a href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/chandra/home.html">Chandra, T.</a>,
<!WA14><!WA14><!WA14><!WA14><!WA14><!WA14><!WA14><!WA14><!WA14><!WA14><!WA14><!WA14><a href="http://www.cdf.toronto.edu:/DCS/CSRI/Hadzilacos.html">V. Hadzilacos</a>
 and S. Toueg.
<!WA15><!WA15><!WA15><!WA15><!WA15><!WA15><!WA15><!WA15><!WA15><!WA15><!WA15><!WA15><a href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/chandra/WeakestFD.html">The weakest failure detector
for solving consensus.</a>
<I>  Proceedings 11th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing
</I> ,
August 1992, Vancouver, Canada, 147-158.
<p>
<li><!WA16><!WA16><!WA16><!WA16><!WA16><!WA16><!WA16><!WA16><!WA16><!WA16><!WA16><!WA16><a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~prasad">Jayanti, P.</a>,
<!WA17><!WA17><!WA17><!WA17><!WA17><!WA17><!WA17><!WA17><!WA17><!WA17><!WA17><!WA17><a href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/chandra/home.html">Chandra, T.</a>,
and S. Toueg.
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Fault-tolerant wait-free shared objects.</a>
<I>  Proceedings 33rd IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science</I>,
October 1992, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 157-166.
<p>
<li> Neiger, G., and S. Toueg.
Simulating synchronized clocks and common knowledge in distributed systems.
<I> Journal of the ACM</I>, vol. 40, 2, 1993, 334-367.
<p>
<p>

